Prime Minister Ardern is warning to expect the number of Covid cases to rise again today as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to spread through households and the community.
A lecturer at Victoria University in Wellington has also tested positive but students have been reassured the university was not a location of interest due to the person not working at the time they were considered contagious.
She said what they were seeing, with the Delta variant, is that when one person is contracting the virus, the rest of the household is too.
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It is hoped they would get to a point where Delta was confined only to those households.
The new cases still arising were people infected before the lockdown, which is why she was still expecting case numbers to peak before starting to drop away, she said.
"Just expect it, we are," she told Newshub.
Contact tracing alone was very difficult when there were so many locations of interest, which is why the country needed to remain in lockdown to stop the spread, she said.
And Covid-19 Minister Chris Hipkins has this morning confirmed there are more cases of Covid in Auckland, as expected, but the Coromandel seems to have dodged a bullet.
Meanwhile, a Victoria University lecturer in Wellington has tested positive. The person tested positive on Friday and was not infectious while on campus, an email from university Vice Chancellor Grant Guilford said.
"Last Friday, we advised you that one of our staff members was a close contact of two confirmed Covid-19 cases in Wellington. The staff member has now also tested positive for Covid-19. However, Regional Public Health has advised that based on prior negative tests, they were not infectious until last Friday, when we were all at alert level 4.
"As a result, there are no locations of interest related to the staff member at the University. We are keeping in close touch with the staff member and providing them with support," said the email to Victoria University students.
Hipkins told Newstalk ZB's Mike Hosking he did not have the Coromandel numbers in but the backlog in testing had been cleared. So far, there were no cases there. "It's looking reasonably encouraging."
Crown Plaza review
Asked by Hosking why there were MIQ locations in the central city - given the source of the Delta outbreak is likely to have come from a recently-returned arrival from Australia staying at the Crowne Plaza in central Auckland - Hipkins said about 60 per cent of MIQ facilities were in central cities, and there was a lot of risk mitigation in place.
He said there was a review under way about what happened at the Crowne Plaza - there were still a lot of unanswered questions.
Speaking on RNZ this morning, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said they were still working through "some theories" regarding a public walkway adjacent to the hotel. "We want to run down all the theories there."
She said authorities had stopped placing people in MIQ at the Crowne Plaza at this stage, as a result.
Ardern told TVNZ the new cases being announced each day were people who were infected before the lockdown. Case numbers would continue to rise before starting to drop away. This was also why there were also more locations of interest still popping up.
Ardern said contact tracing alone was very difficult when there were so many locations of interest - part of the reason why the whole country was still at level 4.
Expert's worst-case scenario: 1000 cases and weeks in lockdown
Te Pūnaha Matatini modeller Professor Shaun Hendy said the cluster was clearly reaching towards the upper limit of expectations when it was detected in Auckland nearly a week ago.
Then they predicted 50 to 120 cases to have been circulating prior to the lockdown.
Now Hendy said a "best-case scenario" could see about 200 cases - greater than the outbreak in August last year - while it was possible the cluster could swell to 1000.
"It's very early to be making estimates because we don't yet know how effective alert level 4 is, but it is possible we could see 1000 cases before we close out this cluster.
"This does mean we will likely see level 4 held in place for several weeks more in the Auckland region.
"For the rest of the country we will have to wait until later in the week to see if they remain clear, in which case, an alert level shift could be considered on Friday.
"In Wellington, where there are active cases, officials will need to rule out spread within the community to consider an alert level shift."
Meanwhile, TV host Mark Richardson has joined several other high-profile broadcasters in isolating at home.
The co-anchor of TV3's breakfast show appeared well when he Zoomed in from his home to pay tribute to departed co-anchor Duncan Garner. As he finished recounting the years alongside the broadcaster, he broke down in tears telling Garner, "You're welcome at Christmas any time you like mate."
TVNZ's Hilary Barry and The Project's Jeremy Corbett are also self-isolating after they attended separate gala events at Spark Arena on August 12 and 13.
There are now 400 potential exposure sites across New Zealand, the majority in Auckland.
Where are the vaccine boosters?
Jacinda Ardern said experts were seeing a lot of household transmisson with the latest outbreak. "It was not unexpected."
She told TVNZ the Government had picked up the pace on its vaccine rollout and by September 1 everyone would be eligible to book. She pointed out there was healthcare worker involved in the latest outbreak that had been fully vaccinated.
Asked by Hosking about vaccine boosters, Hipkins said the Government had not yet signed an agreement but they did have a 1.5 million "in-priniciple agreement" about what they could access and when.
Hipkins said feedback was that Pfizer was keen to give New Zealand access to boosters.
"We are expecting after everyone who was eligible we would have 1.5 to 2 million doses... We would need more by about the second quarter next year."
Asked why Australia can get deliveries from Poland, he said New Zealanbd didn't have a bilateral arrangement.
He rejected the suggestion that New Zealand had had only conversations and nothing practical to sort New Zealand's vaccination rate. At the moment Australia was only ahead of New Zealand for vaccinations because they also had access to Astra Zeneca.
MIQ numbers and access would be reviewed each day. People were still coming in but they weren't releasing more vouchers at this stage. "We do provide rooms for those isolating at home."
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Monday the Auckland level 4 lockdown would extend another week from midnight Tuesday, now ending 11.59pm Tuesday August 31. For the rest of the country, level 4 settings would continue until 11.59pm this Friday.
The Government would reassess the national settings on Friday afternoon, and for Auckland next Monday.
The announcement came after 35 new cases were announced on Monday, the highest daily rise in over a year, bringing the total from this Delta outbreak to 107 - 99 of them in Auckland and eight in Wellington.
Ardern said the longer period would allow time for more testing of known contacts, and wastewater results, as well as whether new cases had been in isolation throughout their infectious periods.
More than 14,000 contacts have now been identified. The vast majority are considered close contacts.
"Aucklanders will see this data and will know this two weeks is a given," Ardern said.
There were "hundreds" of contacts in the South Island, and the spread was from the top to bottom of the country. So far wastewater testing had only identified the virus in Auckland and Wellington.
Another modeller Professor Michael Plank said cases currently reported were very likely to have been infected prior to lockdown.
By the week's end they should be able to build a picture of how effective lockdown itself had been at containing the outbreak and how long it should continue.
The managed isolation and quarantine system has temporarily paused the release of rooms on the allocation system due to the outbreak. This included cancelled vouchers that were normally re-released. No rooms would be available to book for a few days.
Ardern said despite what had been happening overseas the country remained committed to an elimination strategy, which had "worked before".
But as a new variant of the virus has emerged, Ardern says the elimination strategy will change.
